People v. Andrews

BARNARD, P. J.

The defendants Andrews, Hyman and Scott, together with one Marshall, were charged with a violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code in that on July 14, 1956, they did wilfully and unlawfully have in their possession a certain narcotic. Andrews was also charged with one prior conviction, and Scott with six prior convictions. All four defendants pleaded not guilty and Andrews and Scott admitted the prior convictions. A jury was waived and all four defendants were found guilty after a trial by the court. A motion for a new trial by Scott and Hyman was denied and probation was denied as to all four defendants. Andrews has appealed from the judgment, and Hyman and Scott have appealed from the judgment and from the order denying a new trial.

With the few exceptions hereafter noted, the evidence was uncontradicted. An officer of the narcotic detail of the San Diego Police Department had received information from a confidential informant on July 14, 1956, and from another informant about a week before, that narcotics were being used and sold at a certain house in San Diego. He had also received similar information from people in the neighborhood for several weeks up to a day or two before July 14. He knew all four defendants and knew that they were all users of heroin, and had seen known users going and coming from this address on an average of two to four times a week. On

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the morning of July 14, he received information from an informant whose information had proved reliable in the past that the occupants of this house were going to Tijuana to pick up some heroin, and that if they were unable to get money with which to make the purchase they would trade a television set for the heroin. This informant had named these four defendants as the occupants of the house.

On the morning of July 14, this officer stationed himself at a point where he was able to keep this house under observation. At about noon on that day he saw the four defendants drive up to this house in an automobile. Andrews unlocked a padlock on one door of the house and replaced the padlock after Marshall, Hyman and Scott had entered that door. He then went around and entered the house by another door. After waiting a few minutes this officer walked down the alley and through an opening in the fence, which opening was about five feet from the house, and approached an open window which faced the alley. He saw Andrews, Marshall and Hyman seated close together on a divan and Scott seated in an overstuffed chair, facing them. Scott was about three feet from the other three, and there was a vanity stool between him and the other three. They were all about 14 feet from the window at which this officer was standing. As this officer stood at the window he saw a spoon, the bottom of which was black from soot or smut, a medicine dropper with a hypodermic needle attached leaning against an ash tray, and a pile of papers folded like a “bindle fold,” in the manner in which narcotic users fold a paper when they have placed heroin in it. All of these articles were on the vanity stool about which the defendants were seated.